Miracle League of Lake County "Enters the Night" Celebrates Eight Years This Summer

Baseball should be for everyone. At Miracle League Park in Eastlake, it is. 

In 2016, Mark Rantala, current executive director of Slavic Village Development, found out about a Miracle League ballpark opening in Findlay through an NPR story. With over 270 organizations internationally, Miracle League serves more than 200,000 children and young adults with disabilities, giving them the chance to play baseball like other athletes. Serving as director of Lake County Port and Economic Development Authority at the time, Rantala saw this as a golden opportunity to strengthen the Lake County community and quality of life through inclusivity and, of course, the love of baseball. Upon attending opening day in Findlay, Rantala decided that bringing an initiative like this to Lake County was just what the area needed. 

Rantala went to the Lake County Captains stadium in Eastlake (currently known as Classic Park) with a legal pad and a vision. He researched the necessary size for a Miracle League park, which includes a maximum 125-foot distance from home plate to the center-field fence (ensuring all athletes can hit home runs), and stepped off the dimensions in the Captains’ parking lot. He discovered that it would fit “as long as the Captains were willing to give up 26 of their best parking spaces,” he says.

With the help of Eastlake’s then-mayor, Dennis Morley, and then-county-commissioner, Judy Moran, Rantala negotiated to attain the space needed for Lake County’s very own Miracle League ballpark. And with the $1.2 million brought in by principal funders Lake Health (now part of University Hospitals) and Lubrizol, the vision finally became reality.

The process called for a lot of research and planning. Rantala learned all about Miracle League park accommodations, including wheelchair accessible rubberized turf and quiet rooms at the end of the dugouts.

“In less than two years, we went from an idea on a legal pad to an open and operating Miracle League Field,” says Rantala. “It is the single greatest achievement of my professional career.”

Since its first opening day in 2018, Miracle League of Lake County has grown from four teams and 44 athletes to 20 teams and more than 350 athletes. Rantala credits league commissioner Mike Piper with the success and sustainment of the league. Fun events like themed game days and an annual pool party at Coulby Park, sponsored by Lubrizol, keep families coming back. This season, Miracle League Park has even added stadium lights, thanks to Jack Borkey, the late owner of PEPCO in Eastlake, which has allowed the league to expand the season by adding Monday and Thursday night games.

The league remains special to Piper due to the friends he’s made and all he has learned about what these families go through every single day, constantly monitoring and adapting to a world that is not typically designed for them. “I put a lot of time into it and I love it,” Piper says. “People will say, ‘Man, you’re here all the time!’ In my mind, I’m thinking, this is 12 days a year. When I go home, me and my wife do what we want. These athletes, these families — when they leave the field it’s not over.”

Megan Henderson is the mother of 14-year-old Miracle League athlete Aubri, who has been with the league since its opening in 2018. 

“I had no idea how many people were like us in the surrounding areas,” Henderson says. “The Miracle League voice has spread far and beyond what I ever thought it would eight years ago.”

Aubri has cerebral palsy, so she uses a wheelchair and communication device. The Hendersons are used to navigating a world that presents them with endless obstacles. It’s nice for a place to be built just for them for a change.

“It’s the only place we can go where there’s no accommodations. We step on the field and it's already right for her,” says Henderson. “At Miracle League, she’s not Aubri who’s in a wheelchair; she's Aubri who plays on the Reds.”

Tim Sarver, a 45-year-old Miracle League athlete with Down syndrome who plays for the Guardians, has also been with the league since the beginning. “It’s been a blessing to me,” he says. “We are all family.”

Miracle League of Lake County’s growth is impossible to ignore, and their reach only continues to expand. As it grows, it continues to foster a community where everyone belongs, everyone is part of a family, and everyone can play baseball. 

“If you think Disney is the happiest place on Earth, you’ve never been to Miracle League Field,” says Henderson.

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